Cuban is the billionaire owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and the co-founder of the high definition television channel HDNet. In October 2007, Cuban built upon HDNet's past mixed martial arts telecasts, diving head first into the MMA ring with the start of his promotion, HDNet Fights. I conducted an e-mail interview with him this past weekend in which he discussed everything from entrepreneurship to pro basketball to where the sport of MMA is headed. What follows is the transcript of that interview.

anyone that is not lazy wanna read that boxing reform act and give me the jist of it

Basically protects the fighter from the manager, the promoter, the sanctioning body, and himself. Here are two sources to read.

The bill's key reforms would:

-place a one-year limit on the length of a contract between a promoter and boxer;

-prohibit a promoter from having a financial interest in the management of a boxer, and prohibit the manager from having a financial relationship with a promoter;

-prohibit improper payments from promoters or managers to sanctioning bodies, such as the WBA, WBC and IBF;

-require the sanctioning bodies to establish objective and consistent criteria for ranking boxers.

also.

The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act of 2000 is a federal law enacted in the United States that provides for various legal protections to boxers as well as assisting states in regulating boxing as a sport. The legislation was enacted due to boxing's unique position in American sports, not having any organized league or rule-making body to ensure appropriate business practices, and due to the lack of protection offered to boxers from the various sanctioning bodies (e.g., the WBO, WBC, IBF, and others).

In general, the act restricts the types of contract that a boxer may be required to sign in order to box at an event. The boxer cannot, for example, be required to give away future promotional rights as a requirement of competing in a match that is a mandatory bout under the rules of a sanctioning organization. The act also requires sanctioning bodies to reveal to state commissions various information about matches that are held, fees charged to boxers for the sanctioning body to sanction a match, as well as any payment or comps received for the body for affiliating itself with the promoter. It also requires promoters to disclose a large amount of the financial information about bouts to the state commissions, as well as to the boxers they promote.

This is why a while back I said I doubt very much that the UFC would take randy to court over his contract. Stipulations like contracts being automaticly extended if you become champion and carrying on forever if you retire would make the courts stand up and take notice.

The Zuffa is smart though, they are going after randy not over his fight contract but his contract as a spokesman and commentator for the UFC.

If they were forced into signing an Ali-like Reform Act, we would see many fighters jumping around from organization to organization from year to year. Dana would have to stop holding grudges against those who leave to fight in other org's. With that said, I do believe there should be protection from certain exploitations for fighters, but there are many downsides as well. Many people want other org's, as do I, but I would rather there be one with the best talent, and then other org's with the up-and-coming talent. Kind of like the NBA and the developmental leagues, European leagues, and college. The best talent graduate to the NBA and new talent is filtered through the "minor" leagues.